


Somnium

by xSpookyScarySkeletonsx



Series: Compos Mentis [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Drabble, No Plot, because plot is the devil, lots of botanical metaphors / comparisons, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-07
Updated: 2018-12-07
Packaged: 2019-09-13 23:55:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16902135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xSpookyScarySkeletonsx/pseuds/xSpookyScarySkeletonsx
Summary: With only the rats to keep him company, there’s just one thing for Ralph to do: dream.





	Somnium

**Author's Note:**

> fun fact: i uploaded this and then like six hours later i screamed ‘oh god i didn’t add a description’ in the middle of brushing my teeth.  
> i’m a dumbass.

Ralph liked to picture days long passed, only existing in memory now.

 _Dreaming_ , he called it, although he never closed his eyes when he did it, never laid, or even sat, down. Stillness meant tearing hands and evil smiles, gleaming eyes in the light of the moon and plastic snapping like twigs in a storm.

And so Ralph dreamed of brighter days. Only _brighter_ , not _better_.

‘August 16,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Monday, August 16, at the park by the river, Ralph remembers exactly.’ 

There’d been whispers in the air, words muttered by strangers in passing. Ralph didn’t know what had happened, didn’t really care, either. All that mattered was that people had started looking at him differently that day.

Him and everyone else.

But it wasn’t why he dreamed of that specific day, that sunny Monday. It stood out because of the slight breeze, making the grass shift before they mowed it, making the leaves rustle on the trees.

A bench underneath the large oak, the one close to the water. Two women, covered in a web of sunshine and shadows, just sitting, talking.

 _Maybe friends_ , he thought.

Most likely friends, a concept he didn’t understand yet still craved, his desire to care for something, someone, so strong he thought he could almost grab it and pull it from his artificial veins like weeds from the concrete. It was rooted in his fear, the feeling fueled by the intense rage that seared his skin in an invisible way so unlike the burn marks across his face. If Ralph had been more analytical, he might have realized that even his rage was only born from the desperation he felt at how no one had ever cared for him. But he wasn’t like that, hadn’t been designed to analyze and catalogue. His tasks were more simple, more basic. Until one day they weren’t.

Until one day he had gone from existing to living in the blink of a mechanical eye.

And yet none of that truly mattered to Ralph, maybe because he simply lacked the capacity to understand.

But no.

No, that wasn’t quite right. He’d been different, at one point. That much he remembered. Just like all the other androids he had been. Working in the parks and gardens around the city, taking care of trees and weeds and grass. Sometimes there were flowers. Ralph missed the flowers.

There had been none on that fateful day, when he’d been working on cleaning the pavers of a path. It had been his task and he had been so, so close to finishing it. But then suddenly everyone had been gone and he’d been all alone, left behind and forgotten like some old toy.

All alone until suddenly there had been different people, _evilterriblemean_ ones, and it was where everything went blurry and nothing looked quite right until Ralph had woken up different.

_Different._

He hated the word like he hated the tremor in his hands, caused not only by the damaged parts inside his skull.

He feared the word like he feared the twitching of his legs, uncontrollable and threatening in all the worst ways.

It had all led him here, into this forest of concrete, streetlights looming over the roads like the bare branches of dead trees had loomed over almost-abandoned pathways before he had removed them. There were no flowers here either, his only company the rats scurrying across the floor, startled by the constant movement of his limbs that he had no control over.

‘Go away,’ Ralph hissed at them. ‘Go away, go away!’

The rats kept on fleeing, disappearing in dark corners or under what little furniture was left. But the damage had already been done, Ralph rocking himself back and forth on his heels like the trees on a stormy autumn day.

‘Go away,’ he said again, this time quietly under his breath, more to himself than to the company he no longer had. ‘Go away, go away.’

Ralph didn’t like the rats, didn’t like their scuttling and squeaking and wriggling. They were too much like him, a constant reminder of his differentness that stung far more than the marks on his face.

But he also didn’t like to be alone with nothing to do and no one to care for. He would have liked to watch the people passing by but...

‘Can’t do that,’ Ralph told himself, his rocking slowing down as he shook his head instead. ‘Can’t do that. Too dangerous. They will see Ralph and they will get Ralph.’

Trap him like the unwanted animals in the park, but with no chance of freedom being granted after. He didn’t know what it was that the humans did to androids but he knew there would be no freedom.

For now there was nowhere to go, nothing to do. And that was okay, for now. Ralph would just continue to dream.


End file.
